


Forever Lost

by DunkinLove



Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015)
Genre: Fake Character Death, Fluff and Angst, Future Fic, Multi, gallya
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-01
Updated: 2016-04-03
Packaged: 2018-05-30 03:09:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 3,906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6406300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DunkinLove/pseuds/DunkinLove
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"So there can be happily ever afters in the world of espionage..."</p><p>Waverly loses his inaugural team in a mission gone wrong. Until mysterious happenings tell him that maybe they weren't lost after-all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Bonus points to anyone who guesses what movie I stole this idea from.

October 1968

Alexander Waverly had failed his team.

Seventy-two hours of extraction efforts, explosive ordinance disposal and forensic investigation confirmed his fears.

The explosion had both rendered the mission both a success and a horrendous failure.

Waverly sat in his office, numb, his ears still ringing from the noise and commotion of the past three days. The realisation of what had transpired had only just begun to set in as the booming silence of the room surrounded him. He had lost agents and colleagues before. The loss had always stung, but there was an understanding that this had always been a possibility. The nature of the business, he liked to remind himself.

Somehow, this was different. 

He had lost his inaugural team. In less than five years the three unlikely agents had taken his fledgling agency and made it into an international force for good. It had only taken one bomb and a matter of micro-seconds to bring it all to an end. A bomb and a glaring oversight on the part of the agency head; the leader they were supposed to have trusted. Large scale explosives in a human trafficking ring operation were not something he had been expecting or prepared for. 

His oversight had cost three lives.

And the heart of his organization. 

____

Their funerals had been sparse affairs. Entirely UNCLE staff, who showed the respectful but distant condolences of colleagues and co-workers. In this line of work, a funeral was less a service of honour and remembrance than a stark reminder of the dangers of the job. 

Their respective agencies and homelands reacted with varying degrees of disinterest at the loss of damaged goods. 

The CIA had made the largest fuss, and 'fuss' was about as personal as their reaction could be described. To Waverly it seemed they felt cheated on not being able to expend Solo's life for their own purposes. He was meant to be one bullet in their cartridge and he hadn't been discharged at any of their chosen targets. He was either theirs or he was to rot in jail. That was the agreement. In the end he was a wasted investment. A real money pit. And they had wanted to make it known, much to Waverly's annoyance.

Their peers in Russia had hardly acknowledged the news. Over the years the KGB's insistence on the repatriation of Kuryakin became less about his value as an agent and more about the question of his allegiance. They were happy enough to have had a potential leak permanently plugged, and to have saved on the cost of a train ticket east and a bullet. Waverly was sure there was a new best agent and they would continue on in the name of socialism, regardless.

And Miss Teller? Well, good riddance as far as the GDR would be concerned. There was no love lost between Gaby and her half of the Fatherland, and Britain had been nothing more than an adopted home out of convenience and chance. She had been a stateless person. Someone who had fallen between the cracks of the international arena.

Perhaps it was only a matter of time before it all came crashing down, Waverly thought as he watched the first three globes etched into the newly created remembrance wall at headquarters. This or eventual imprisonment or execution. There were no happily ever afters in the world of espionage, Waverly reminded himself. He had been foolish to have thought there could be...  
___

There was a light tap on his office door. 

Waverly looked up.

"Yes?"

His assistant, Thompson, entered, carrying a small bag.

"Excuse me, sir. Forensics asked me to bring this to you. It was found near...the scene of the blast. They said it may have belonged to one of our agents."

Waverly stood and took the bag. Inside was a mens watch, badly damaged, with singed glass face and a strap hanging by a thread. It had been torn off its owner at some point.

An owner who Waverly had known quite well and who wouldn't be returning for the watch.

"Yes, I believe it was Kuryakin's" Waverly confirmed sadly.

"Shall I have it forwarded to his family, sir?"

"No, Thompson, that won't be necessary. Thank you."

The young man nodded curtly and left Waverly alone in his office with the watch. 

There was no family to return it to. There hadn't been anyone to send the three agents' effects to. They, in the end, really only had had each other. 

Waverly removed the watch from the bag. On the back, barely legible through the char, was a bit of Cyrillic.

 _...on our anniversary_ , it partially read. 

Waverly clasped the watch in his palms before taking a deep breath and placing it on his shelf. 

He'd keep it safe and in return he hoped it would remind him of what he stood to lose if he didn't do his job. And well.


	2. Chapter 2

February 1969

The work of Alexander Waverly and UNCLE marched on, despite the loss of their best agents. The watch, however, remained on the centre shelf of Waverly's office as a stark reminder of what had transpired and as a promise to himself that it would never happen again.

The months passed and Waverly had just begun to delude himself that things were returning to normality. Throwing himself full-force into his work usually did that.

Striding into his office Waverly rummaged through the dossiers on his desk as his assistant, Thompson, followed close behind. He really ought to be more organised...

"That's a rather stunning antique, sir." 

Waverly looked up from the file of a rather bullfaced IRA member.

"Excuse me?" Waverly asked over his shoulder, perplexed and a little annoyed. He had more than enough work to do this morning.

"That flask. They don't make them like that anymore."

Waverly set the file down and turned around. He didn't keep personal items in his office, with the exception of the watch. Which wasn't even his. 

Thompson stepped aside and Waverly's eyes landed on a small silver hip flask sitting on his centre shelf. Where the watch was sitting. 

Where the watch _had sat_.

Waverly barely willed his face to remain passive.

"Yes. Quite exquisite isn't it." Waverly said slowly. 

He returned to the file.

"Thompson, would you please run this down to Patel in the counter-terrorism unit?" He handed the young man the file. "I'll be down in a moment."

"Yes, sir." Thompson said dutifully before exiting the office.

Waverly followed close behind and locked the door.

The silver flask sat resolutely on the shelf. Deliberately placed in lieu of the watch. Waverly approached it slowly, hesitant to touch it, not for fear of surveillance or detonation, but with concern that the merest disturbance would cause the phantasmal object to vanish. 

He reached for the flask and felt the cool and smooth silver under his fingers. It was so similar, not an exact match, but damn close. 

The watch was nowhere to be found.

"Absolutely extraordinary..." he muttered to himself.

___

_Waverly was feeling rather pleased with himself. He allowed himself as much. He did, after-all, assist in saving the world._

_And if that wasn't good enough, his fledgling organisation, (which at one point he had believed was little more than a pipe dream), was beginning to take formation. More quickly than imagined, in fact, as he had acquired two agents completely by happenstance._

_Now, all four were on their way to Istanbul for their next mission. Sitting on the private jet, looking down on the sparkling Adriatic, Waverly mentally patted himself on the back._

_He glanced over at his small team._

_Gabriella was curled across two seats, sleeping for the duration of the flight. She deserved it. She had done exceptionally well for her first mission. Solo could be heard in the back of the aircraft, harassing the stewardess, who seemed quite happy for the distraction._

_Kuryakin, leaning against the fuselage, stared blankly at his hands. He looked like a trapped animal._

_Waverly knew this arrangement would prove the most difficult adjustment for the Russian. It wasn't everyday (or every lifetime, for that matter) that a Soviet agent is asked to work in conjunction with an American and a Brit. It was practically unheard of even during the war..._

_Waverly decided to try his hand at easing the man's nerves._

_"I'm rather pleased to see you have recovered your watch Kuryakin." Waverly said amiably._

_Illya snapped out of his trance and looked down at his wrist._

_"Thank you...sir." he answered hesitantly. Yes, he was certainly still coming to terms with his circumstances._

_Waverly wasn't sure what type of relationship the man had with his former retainer, but he gathered it might be beneficial to make an effort of companionability. After all, he was part of a team now. He would have to learn how to have positive interactions with others, and that didn't involve fist fights in the gents._

_"I once had something sentimental stolen off me as well, on one of my first missions." Waverly began, even though Kuryakin made no indication he wanted to hold a conversation. He saw the Russian stiffen at the word 'sentimental'._

_"It was early on in the war," Waverly continued, "when I was with the SOE and was operating in France with the Résistance. I was still quite young and was taken under the wing of one of the local operatives. Lovely chap. We really got on, despite his Frenchness and my Englishness..."_

_Kuryakin stared and gave no indication of interest or indifference to his story._

_Waverly cleared his throat. "After a particularly successful mission in Châteaudun he gave me a fine, silver hip flask. I remember it vividly. It had an art deco design just down the side. Finest thing I ever owned," which, he thought to himself, is saying quite a lot for the son of an Earl._

_"Sadly, he was caught and executed not three weeks later," Waverly remembered, "and not too long after that I had to relinquish the hip flask to a rather nasty group of Milice or risk my cover."_

_Waverly smiled sadly. "So, as I said, I'm rather pleased to see you were able to regain your watch. I wish the same had been true of my hip flask."_

_Kuryakin nodded. It was hardly noticeable, and maybe it just took a trained spy to see it, but the man softened ever so slightly. Waverly was glad he took the risk to reveal a rather painful part of his past. He truly hoped that Kuryakin would come around to enjoying this unique opportunity. He was a fantastic agent and Waverly didn't want to relinquish him._  
___

Fantastic agent, indeed.

Waverly looked over at the phone on his desk. He knew his duty was to contact the KGB immediately, and inform them of the status of their borrowed agent. That was the nature of the agreement. He had given his word...but looking at the flask, and the memory of the watch still so vivid in his mind, stayed his hand. 

Kuryakin, as far as Waverly was concerned, could remain dead. He deserved anonymity. He had escaped a potentially tragic existence in Russia, survived a bomb blast and outsmarted his former superiors. If faking his own death is what he needed to do to finally be free of the fist of the KGB then so be it. Then there was the matter of losing his two closest friends and compatriots....

Or had he? 

Waverly wouldn't let himself dare to hope. 

He put the flask back on the shelf. 

Sometimes things don't remain forever lost after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I took some liberties with Waverly's past. According to the end credit dossiers Waverly was in the SBS not the SOE. Unfortunately, I know more about the SOE than the SBS so for convenience purposes, I changed it. Sorry naval fans!
> 
> More will be posted tomorrow.


	3. Chapter 3

May, 1969  


Paris, France  


Waverly stood under the awning of the Hotel Plaza Athénée waiting for the valet to arrive with his car. It was taking longer than usual, and while he didn't mind taking a moment to enjoy the fresh air of a sunny spring day in Paris, he did have places to be. 

He checked his wrist watch once again.The valet appeared, sans car. 

Waverly frowned.

"My apologies, Monsieur," the valet said, nearly out of breath, "but it seems one of the tyres on your vehicle has gone flat. Fortunately the tyre itself is intact but the valve was missing. We are terribly sorry for the inconvenience, it will only be a moment as we have it inflated."

"No worries at all, it's been quite an issue with that car as of late. I must have it looked at." Waverly said politely. 

The valet nodded and turned to leave. 

Waverly frowned and considered for a moment.

"Could you tell me," he said before the valet turned the corner, "which tyre has gone flat? If you do not mind..."

"The front left, Monsieur."

"And the tyre is otherwise intact?"

"Yes, Monsieur. Only the valve had been removed."

"Ah," Waverly said to himself, "very curious..."

He nodded and the valet went on his way.

"Very curious indeed..."

___

_"They're watching me."_

_"I don't think I need to remind you that the Stasi do watch everyone in the GDR," Waverly said casually as he stood just behind the young German woman as she waited for the tram at Alexanderplatz in East Berlin. He drew on his cigarette and imperceptibly surveyed his surroundings._

_"No, this is different," Gaby insisted, staring straight ahead. "Three times now the front left tyre of my car has been left flat. Three. In a week. Do you know how difficult it is to find even a spare tyre valve in this country?"_

_The young woman reached into her purse and pulled out a cigarette and lighter. Her sharp profile was turned toward him._

_"They do that to people they suspect. They like to inconvenience you at first. Make you feel like you're going mad. They like you to know they have full control over your life."_

_"But they won't for much longer," Waverly began, "there are only a few more arrangements-"_

_"_ Verpiss dich _," Gaby hissed quietly between her teeth, her expression remaining controlled and indifferent; already an excellent spy. "You've been saying that for nearly two years. I want out. Now. Or I'll find my own way," her voice lowered even further and was nearly lost in the wind. "I've heard rumors of a tunnel."_

 _"_ Geduld _, Fräulein Schmidt," Waverly murmured over the sound of the arriving tram, "I need you to be patient. Waiting is the nature of the game I'm afraid."_

_Gaby turned her profile once more before blowing smoke through the corner of her lips, catching on the wind and into his face._

_"Someday I'll pay you back for making me wait," she stamped out her cigarette, "and for filling all those tyres..."_

_She boarded the tram without a glance back._  
___

Two weeks later Gaby found herself on the opposite side of the Wall. Not via tunnel, and not through Waverly's careful arrangements, but with a zip line, a CIA agent and a KGB tail. 

She had been a stubborn woman and somehow she usually ended up with what she wanted...she also had a wicked sense of humour.

Has.

Three flat tyres on his car in little under a week. Always the front left. Terrible luck that...and yet, the thought made him smile and his chest burst with relief and joy.

His defector was finally free.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Stasi really did [screw with the lives of people](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stasi#Zersetzung) they held in suspicion, driving some to the point of insanity or even suicide. Real nasty bunch.
> 
> I feel like Gaby is kind of a little shit so she would pull something like this rather than give Waverly something more meaningful. But I also think, as a Brit, he would probably enjoy this kind of snarky behaviour. 
> 
> Verpiss dich: fuck off/piss off
> 
> Geduld: patience


	4. Chapter 4

September 1969

London, England

Waverly entered the foyer of his London home, brushing the rain off his trench coat. It was the first night be would be sleeping in his own house in three...four weeks? He wasn't even sure anymore. One could quickly become accustomed to living out of hotel rooms and sleeping on airplanes if one wasn't careful.

First order of business after adjusting the thermostat was to find the scotch, which had been sitting in peace in his study for far too long. 

Mid-way through pouring a tumbler of scotch that was maybe a mite too full Waverly noticed the decanters. Three to be exact. Sitting neatly in his father's oak wooden decanter holder. 

Waverly looked down at his scotch, wondering if he had already finished a glass without his remembering, and back at the Tantalus cut crystal decanters. 

He set his tumbler down and reached for the first decanter. 

It was original. A complete set with the holder. 

And now it was sitting in his study.  
___

_Napoleon Solo had kindly agreed to appraise some artwork and antiquities that had recently come into his possession. It came as no surprise that Waverly's late brother had invested the scant remainder of the old family money into a load of rubbish. Not that it much mattered. Alexander Waverly had always been a man who wanted to make his own way in the world._

_"I'm terribly sorry to have wasted your time, Solo." Waverly sighed as he poured himself and Solo a drink._

_"No worries at all," Napoleon said as he took the glass, "if anything it saves you time of having to take everything to the auction house."_

_"I certainly don't have time for that nonsense," Waverly smiled over his tumbler._

_"Now this looks like it may have been worth something at some point." Napoleon said with admiration as he approached the intricately carved oak decanter holder with its sterling silver lock bar sitting elegantly on the mantel in Waverly's study._

_"A family heirloom. One-of-a-kind. You'll see my great-grandfather's initials monogrammed on the corner, just there."_

_Napoleon inspected the fine carving._

_"Where are the original decanters?" he asked._

_"Gone, unfortunately. My father was a tightfisted bastard saddled with inherited debt. Like so many titled families, we were forced to sell the ancestral estate in the 20's, along with most of its contents, so he sold the decanters to the home's new owner," Waverly explained, "somehow managed to get a good return on them even without the box."_

_"Buying an incomplete set? That sounds like a rookie mistake." Napoleon noted._

_"Well, he was selling to a_ nouveau riche _American," Waverly explained with a smile, "you can't expect them to know about these things."_

_"How provincial," Napoleon grinned, "but he kept the holder, despite everything?"_

_"He was a bit of a sentimentalist, you see. Couldn't let go of that rotten old box," Waverly explained as he looked at the decanter holder fondly, "and neither can I...even though I can't find decanters to fit the bloody thing..."_

_"Do you think they're still in the home's collection?" Napoleon mused._

_"I imagine so," Waverly said sadly, swirling the whiskey in his tumbler, "collecting dust with the rest of the inheritance of the Earldom of Brinscote."_

_"A shame..." Napoleon said_

_"I couldn't agree more."_

___

Waverly covered his mouth with his hand in astonishment. 

A burst of laughter bubbled up from his throat that even his hand couldn't smother. He laughed at the thought of the owner of the manor, scratching his head as he looked for his drink. He laughed because his home, the home of the head of a spy agency, had been so easily breached. But he laughed, most of all, at the fact that he had let the wool be pulled over his eyes. 

He had underestimated all three of them. 

Sitting back with his drink, his laughter finally subsided, Waverly mused that, while he may never see the team again, he was immensely pleased to know they were out there somewhere in the wide world, and they hadn't forgotten about him. 

And for a man who constantly stood to lose it all, including the world, that meant everything.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Waverly's Decanters](https://p2.liveauctioneers.com/368/10936/2814825_1_l.jpg)
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> Yes, Waverly is a diagnosed alcoholic and everyone is giving him containers to hold his booze...but I don't think that would be all that unusual in the 60's male macho culture. 
> 
> There will be some gallya in the final chapter. Don't you worry.


	5. Chapter 5

April, 1978

Malmö, Sweden

He didn't feel particularly well-suited to retirement. Alexander Waverly had existed on a strict regimen of briefings and training, operations and extractions, stress and excitement since well before the war. Now he had 'time to put his feet up', so to say. Whatever the bloody hell that meant.

Travel seemed the first order of business, ironically, as so much of his profession had revolved around international sojourns to exotic and not-so-exotic locales the world over. Now, however, he could actually see his destinations, instead of running from embassies and consulates to military bases and illegal arms factories.

He didn't seem to be doing a very good job at being tourist. When he told former colleagues his first destination was a small city on the coast of Sweden, as opposed to the Maldives or, say, Fiji, he had elicited a variety of odd looks. Waverly didn't mind, however. He quite enjoyed the fresh sea air and the cool breeze on his cheeks as he sat outside a small café bordering the bustling Sunday market on the waterfront.

Hard-wired instincts are hard to kill, he finds. He ignores the novel he has been struggling to finish in favour of watching the tourists and locals mill about the market; taking in faces and noting behaviours. One individual enters his field of vision and the spy in him, the part that will never retire until he is dead in the ground, snaps to attention.

There was no shortage of tall, blond men in Scandinavia to be sure, but something about the set of the man's shoulders, the way his calculated glance scanned the crowd, much the same way Waverly was doing at that moment, was uncannily familiar. The blue eyed gaze came within a hairsbreadth of Waverly's when a sudden distraction at the man's side averted his attention. The child, no more than five or six, tugged at his jacket, arms raised, demanding to be lifted. In one smooth movement the man lifted the girl high above the crowd, her dirty blond curls catching in the cool breeze from the sea. The man was rewarded with a sparse-toothed smile and a tight hug around the neck.

Waverly, for the first time in his career (former career?) caught himself staring dumbfounded at a mark. Surely it couldn't be? And with a child? But as the man made his way through the market and closer to him, Waverly could see that - while the glow of paternal love was new - it was the same stern-faced Illya Kuryakin that had stumbled onto his mission some fifteen years prior.

His old heart nearly stopped in his chest when the small brunette emerged from the crowd to join the Russian's side. She too had her arms full of squirming child in the form of a dark haired toddler. She transferred the boy to his father as Gaby (and yes, it was most certainly her) looked down to adjust her shopping bags. As her eyes came up, they locked with Waverly's. Fear at being recognised briefly shadowed her face but in less than a moment her eyes softened and a nearly imperceptible smile formed on her lips. Her partner, following her gaze, inspected Waverly with his familiar stoicism. He nodded presently over the head of his eldest. Waverly, ever so slightly, lifted his tea cup in their direction.

So there can be happily ever afters in the world of espionage, a contently retired Waverly pondered as he watched the couple and their brood disappear back into the market. He smiled as he lifted his lukewarm cup of tea to his mouth. If only he could catch a sighting of Solo out in the wild as well...

He absentmindedly felt for the wallet in his pocket. It was still there.

Maybe it was for the best that he didn't, he thought with a grin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I stole this idea from the [ending](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvtJ_XC2bz8) of The Dark Knight Rises. I like to think that Waverly and Albert meet up at some point, backpack around Europe and talk about the time they _thought_ their friends died. ;)
> 
> I know this ending leaves a ton of plot-holes (why not just write a note???) but... **DRAMA**
> 
> I'm sorry there was no Solo sighting. He's out there somewhere but is a bit of a tumble weed in the wind. Maybe Waverly will run into him at some point.


End file.
